Line #26 Literature/WhenIWasFiveIKilledMyself


1	[[quoteright:292:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/when_i_was_five_i_killed_myself_paperback_cover_9781841951898.jpg]]
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3	'''''When I Was Five, I Killed Myself''''' (''Burt'' or ''Quand j'avais cinq ans, je m'ai tué'' in its French publications) is a 1981 novel by Howard Buten with an unusual publication history: an English-language novel written by an American, it sank like a rock in its home country, while [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff its French translation became a cult classic]] often called "the French ''[[Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye Catcher in the Rye]]''" (statistically, it's been read by [[NineOutOfTenDoctorsAgree one out of every ten French people who know how to read]]) and has never been out of print, resulting in [[TheFilmOfTheBook two film adaptations]] and a stage play. Only in 2000 was the novel finally republished in America.
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5	Eight-year-old Burt Rembrandt doesn't want to be a child anymore, but the world of adults doesn't seem such great shakes, either: full of fear, confusion, and incomprehensible rules that stand in the way of fun and human connection. Unable to either relate to his peers or to be taken seriously by the adults around him, Burt's world is turned upside down when he meets Jessica, a kindred spirit whose imagination, defiance, and worldview is a perfect match for his own. What begins as PuppyLove soon becomes more powerful than anything Burt can understand, and he realizes that he's in love...and he doesn't know what to do about it.
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7	''When I Was Five, I Killed Myself'' is Burt's story, written on the walls of the Quiet Room of the Children's Trust Residence Center where he has been sent after his relationship with Jessica ends in tragedy.
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9	!!This novel contains examples of the following tropes:
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11	* AdultsAreUseless: Exemplified in the hospital, where the doctors are too fixed on a diagnosis to look at their young charges as humans. Burt longs to be an adult in order to have his feelings taken seriously, while suspecting adulthood means simply hiding one's feelings.
12	* AffectionateNickname: Jessica's father calls her Contessa.
13	* AllGirlsLikePonies: Jessica has an imaginary horse named Blacky and is seen reading books from the ''Literature/TheBlackStallion'' series.
14	* BedlamHouse: Played pretty realistically. The Residential Center isn't a house of horrors: it has doctors, regular therapy, and structure; the kids are taken on outings, have a playground and a play-therapy room, and get weekly visits to the swimming pool.[[note]]It's even noted that the swimming area has just been completed, indicating a modern, well-funded hospital.[[/note]] But it's still a psychiatric institution and there are still straitjackets, bars on the windows, isolation rooms, and the occasional dangerous patient or unkind staff member.
15	* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Burt and Jessica share one of these.
16	* ChildhoodMarriagePromise: Before meeting Jessica, Burt considers marrying his best (male) friend Shrubs when they grow up--not because of any homosexual feelings, but because girls are icky and it seems more fun to be married to your best friend.
17	* ChildProdigy: Burt is extremely advanced in reading and writing. He is always the champion of the school's spelling bee and practices for it by reading the dictionary. This turns into a ChekhovsSkill/narrative device for the book itself as we find it is meant to be Burt writing his story on the walls (with relatively few spelling or grammatical errors to distract from the narrative).
18	** Jessica likewise seems to be sophisticated for her age: her reading and writing is equal to (if not greater than) Burt's, she speaks basic French, and she has an eerie grasp of emotional truths. It's implied that her parents are pretty progressive and purposefully encourage and direct her intellectual development.
19	* ChildrenAreInnocent: Deconstructed, subverted, ''and'' played straight as a major theme of the book.
20	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Rudyard comes off as this, with his frequent non sequiturs and irrational fears. We later find out that he's mirroring the fears and emotions of his young charges as part of his therapeutic technique.
21	** Burt's buddy Shrubs is also a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander even compared to other kids in the book.
22	* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority: Burt, Jessica, and to a degree Rudyard.
23	* DidYouDie: In spite of the title, Burt did not literally kill himself when he was five. [[spoiler: The title refers to an incident where five-year-old Burt is terrified by a news report of a girl his own age killed in an accident. Not wanting to live in a world where terrible things happen for no reason but unable to articulate this feeling, he goes up to his room, makes a FingerGun, and shoots himself in the head.]]
24	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: When Jessica tells her "what I did on my vacation" story, it is an obviously false, fantastical story of a magical adventure. In the book's climax they end up unwittingly acting out her story beat for beat in real-world terms.
25	* DoNotCallMePaul: Burt introduces himself to Jessica as Randy. She continues to call him this, even after he admits his real name.
26	* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: When Dr. Nevile jokingly invites Burt to "step into [his] chambers," Burt freaks out because he thinks Nevile is going to ''kill'' him. Dr. Nevile takes this as evidence of Burt's growing paranoid delusions and has him locked in the Quiet Room. In fact, the only time Burt's ever heard the word "chambers" was in a horror film about a doctor who trapped people in his ''torture'' chambers. [[note]]Since no one's bothered to explain where he is, Burt believes he's in "kid jail" for what he did to Jessica, with no idea what that punishment might entail.[[/note]]
27	* EmbarrassingDampSheets: Everyone in Burt's summer camp cabin ends up wetting the bed at night, except for Burt, who instead [[PottyFailure poops in bed on the last night of camp]]. In the end, all the other children's accidents are forgotten in favor of Burt's.
28	* EveryoneIsChristianAtChristmas: Burt goes to see the MallSanta at Christmas. Having never had any first-hand experience with Christmas, he asks Santa if he's Jewish, too. When Santa assures him that Santa is all religions, including Jewish, parents begin pulling their kids out of the line.
29	* FreeRangeChildren: Set in the late 50s/early 60s, the book has a shockingly cavalier attitude toward child supervision.
30	** Burt's class goes on a field trip to the zoo where the teachers turn the kids loose, allowing Jessica to climb into the alligator enclosure.
31	** Burt's friend Shrubs sneaks over at midnight so they can play Franchise/{{Zorro}} together. When Burt's mom discovers them, not only does she not bother calling Shrubs' parents, she lets the kids play outside for an hour and allows Shrubs to walk back home unattended.
32	** Later, Burt and Jessica skip school and wander around downtown. A few adults ask why they're not in school, but overall, no one finds this alarming.
33	* GoodDocBadDoc: Rudyard versus Dr. Nevile.
34	* HowWeGotHere: The book begins after Burt has been in the Center for several weeks and flashes back and forth between his experiences in the hospital and the events that led him there.
35	* HilarityInZoos: On a class trip to the zoo, Jessica decides to introduce herself to the alligators, up close, ''en français.''
36	* ILetYouWin: Jessica lets Burt win the spelling bee, even though she's a better speller than he, because it means nothing to her and everything to him.
37	* InformedJudaism: Burt is from a mixed-religion family, noting that he has a Bubbie and a Zadie on one side but a Grandma and a Gramps on the other. He mentions getting Hanukkah gifts and attending Passover with his dad's family, but the family doesn't appear to attend either synagogue ''or'' church, nor do they celebrate either Shabbat or the Sabbath. And while Burt has the occasional misunderstanding or insight into Christianity, he never seems to have a similar insight about Judaism.
38	* KidHasAPoint: Jessica, frequently leading to IHaveNothingToSayToThat from adults.
39	** Burt's first memory of Jessica is during [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar an air raid drill]]. Jessica gets up and tells the teacher that if the bombs are coming, she would prefer to die at home with her family. When the teacher tells Jessica that it's only a drill and that there are no bombs, Jessica replies that the teacher should be ashamed of herself for letting children believe they were going to die. The teacher is rendered speechless, and Burt is smitten.
40	* PlayingDoctor: It goes a bit beyond that.
41	* QuestionableConsent: [[spoiler: Jessica and Burt's um, love scene, as the participants are both eight years old. While on the surface it seems that both Jessica and Burt were consenting, it's questionable if ''either'' party can truly consent when they don't understand the full implications of what they're doing. [[NoYay Far from being titillating,]] the scene comes off as both tragic, horrifying, heartbreakingly innocent, and incredibly [[{{Squick}} uncomfortable.]] ]]
42	* ReversePsychology: When Burt acts out because he's afraid of the group swimming lesson at the Center, Rudyard pretends to be more scared of the water than Burt is. First Burt is angry, shouting at Rudyard and calling him a sissy (just as Burt fears being called a sissy for being frightened), but then Burt takes over the role of caregiver and encourages Rudyard to go into the pool with him so that neither of them will be so afraid.
43	* RoomFullOfCrazy: Subverted. Burt scribbles all over the walls of the Quiet Room, which Dr. Nevile takes as a symptom of his psychosis...because he never bothers to read it. In fact, Burt is writing out [[IShouldWriteABookAboutThis the very story we're reading]] detailing all the experiences and feelings that led him to the hospital--the very information Dr. Nevile has been trying to get Burt to tell him.
44	* StalkerWithACrush: Burt for Jessica, on a kid-friendly scale: he follows her home after school, then watches her whenever they're in class together. Later Jessica admits that she knew he was there the whole time but ignored him until he could actually speak to her.
45	* SwornBrothers: Burt and Shrubs are best friends who decide to seal their friendship by becoming blood brothers. Burt is too afraid of needles to poke himself with a pin, so he slams his finger in a drawer instead and ends up in a cast.
46	* TheTalk: Burt's mom avoids this by giving him a child's book on human reproduction (''From Little Acorns'') and letting him figure it out for himself. [[spoiler:It backfires horribly.]]
47	* ThereAreNoTherapists: Subverted, in that the book starts with Burt already in a mental hospital. However, the therapists available offer wildly varying degrees of help.
48	* TitleDrop: The novel's title is its opening line.
49	* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Ostensibly it would seem that [[spoiler: two young children engaging in sex]] would be the major example of this, but the book goes out of its way to challenge the notion of what "childlike behavior" really is, and seems to argue that ''any'' behavior is childlike if acted on by a child.
50	* WellIntentionedExtremist: Dr. Nevile, who in his heart genuinely wants to help the children in his care, but can't let go of his established, deep-rooted beliefs and authoritarianism even when they clearly don't work.
51	** Rudyard is this too, but in the opposite direction: he abandons conventional psychological methods in favor of his own radical, hands-on, unorthodox therapy (which could endanger both him and the children).

Context Literature / WhenIWasFiveIKilledMyself